grace, as being all in all in the business of man's salvation. It is most true that He worketh all in all; but He worketh on every distinct subject of His power agreeably to its distinct and characteristic nature. When working in the world of inorganic matter, He does not change the elements or bereave them of their respective properties and forces; but upholding them in these, and preserving the distinction between them-He maketh the winds and the waters and the lightnings, and even the inert and solid earth we tread upen, the instruments of His pleasure. When He worketh in the animal or vegetable kingdom, He reverses not one law or process of physiology; but operating on every thing according to its kind, and without violence done either to the generical or specifical varieties of each-still it is He who "causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth;" and it is He also, who maintains the powers and the instincts of every living creature, as when in the sublime language of Job, He giveth to the horse its strength and clotheth his neck with thunder. And it is even so in the moral world: Every where He is all in all-supreme in the higher as in the lower departments of nature; and yet neither obliterating the characteristics, nor overbearing the functions of any individual thing in which or by which He is pleased to operate-whether it be a plant, or an animal, or finally a man1 Psalm civ, 14.

1

over whom He has the entire and resistless sovereignty, yet exercises it with perfect conformity to all the feelings and faculties of his moral nature— his conscience-his intelligence-his choice-and the whole busy play of his emotions and purposes and endeavours. God worketh all in all, and as completely in man as in any other of His creatures. But what is it that He worketh in him? He worketh in him to will and to do. So that there is room both for the sovereign grace of God the Creator, and the spontaneous acting of man the creature. In all that is good, and therefore agreeable to God's good pleasure, the creature acts just in the degree, be it great or small, in which the Creator actuates. And therefore it is that in those acts of grace, which, as contradistinguished from its great and primary act, or the grace of election, we termed its subordinate acts-we say not merely that man bears a part, but even acts a part-As in believing, though faith be indeed the gift of God; 1 or in understanding, though it be the Spirit who opens the understanding to understand the Scriptures; or in attending, though it be the Lord that openeth the heart to attend, as He did that of Lydia; 2 or in praying, though it be from above that the Spirit of grace and supplication is poured upon us; or in willing, though it be God alone who makes us willing for good in the day of His power; or in striving, though we can strive mightily only according

1 Ephesians, ii, 8.
3 Zechariah, xii, 10.

1

4

3

2 Acts, xvi, 14.

4 Psalm, cx, 3.

to His working who worketh in us mightily;1 and finally, in the business of purifying ourselves and perfecting our own holiness, though this can only be as fellow-workers with God, who have not received His grace or His promises in vain, when God will dwell in us and walk in us.2 In all these instances there is a grace put forth from on high, and this responded to by being acted on from below. This may serve to establish our discrimination between the primary act of grace, even that of election, in which man has no part, and the subordinate acts, in which man has a part-and termed by us subordinate, not only because posterior in time, but because dependent in the order of cause and effect on the preordination from which they all have germinated. It is obvious that man had no part in the primary act, any more than he has had a part in his own creation. But it is alike obvious that he has a part in the subordinate acts, though a part of as entire subjection as is that of the clay in the hands of the potter. It is a part however; and such a part as properly and characteristically belongs to a willing, understanding, purposing, and acting creature. And so he believes, perhaps after enquiry and prayer, in order to his justification; and he obeys, with prayer and painstaking both, in order to his sanctification; and while nothing is more true than that by grace alone he is saved, yet in perfect harmony with this, and as being a grace which both teaches and enables him to live soberly 2 2 Corinthians, vii, 1; vi, 1, 16.

1 Colossians, i, 29.

VOL. IV.

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righteously and godly-it is equally true that it is for him to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling.

Now we hold it of capital importance, both for rightly dividing the word of truth and for the guidance of our practical Christianity, clearly to understand—that there is nothing in the consideration of the primary grace passed in heaven long ago, which should in the very least affect or embarrass the part we ought to take on earth in that subordinate grace wherewith we have presently to do. We e are the more anxious to press this home, because of the imagination-that the one is a barrier in the way of our dealing freely and confidently with the other, just as is prescribed and plainly laid down for us in Scripture. Whatever your capacity may be for the doctrine of election-whether it be a strong meat which you are able for; or, if fit only for the milk which serves to the nourishment of babes, you ought not to meddle with it-this cannot change, nor should it in the slightest darken, those stable categories of Scripture, that concern either the duties to be done by all, or the calls and the promises which are there held out to all. This doctrine must be profitable to some at least, else it would have formed no part or parcel of Scripture,1 though perhaps it may not yet have been profitable to you-nay in danger, it may be, of being so perverted and misunderstood, as to be wrested by you to your own hurt. God may at length, or He may 12 Timothy, iii, 16.

not, reveal even this unto you, as He does to others who are perfect. But be this as it may-let that great and primary deed of grace which took place amid the counsels of the past eternity, and was transacted when God stood alone-let that be to you a lofty and transcendental theme which you cannot lay hold of, but which must remain an inaccessible mystery till the time cometh when you shall know even as you are known-There is, posterior to this and subordinate to this, a grace, in the operation of which God standeth not alone, but which He brings to bear on earth's lowly platform -that here it may circulate at large and come into busy converse with the hearts and among the habitations of men. Of this grace as placed within the reach of all, it is the duty of all to avail themselves. "Ask, and ye shall receive: Seek, and ye shall find"-Pray for the Holy Spirit, and He shall be given to you-Believe, and ye shall be saved; and, in order to this belief, give earnest heed to the things which are spoken-These are all so many parts and manifestations of that subordinate, or as it may be termed, of that accessible or available grace whereof I am now speaking, and of which each man is called on to avail himself; and that without once bestowing a thought or a conjecture on the question, whether he has or has not a part in the grace of election. These are the revealed and the patent and the palpable things we have to do with here; and they ought not to be compli1 Philippians, iii, 15.